tv or movies

write in for Angry Birds

Although the current percentage of quality television is probably just as infinitesimally small as the percentage of quality film, I have to go with TV. Hardly anyone making movies seems to be trying very hard anymore.

Tough. A few years ago I would've clicked "movies" without hesitation -- but TV is a much bigger part of my life these days.

stan for tv cause it's where i wanna work and i think it has infinitely more potential, but movies are clearly better

Hardly anyone making movies seems to be trying very hard anymore.

thread delivers on challop promise

I mean, it's not like I want to be right about that. I'm open to being put in my place and introduced to recent films that do anything exciting/interesting/different.

Tough. A few years ago I would've clicked "movies" without hesitation -- but TV is a much bigger part of my life these days

^^i'm kind of inclined to say this. i think TV has gotten p dope over the last decade. can't really say the same for movies.

movies are pretty awful. can't think of the last time i saw a movie that was successful as a piece of art; most of them barely function as pieces of entertainment.

i could talk about cultural values or changing economics or easy access to a couch potato like me, but really i'm voting 'tv' because good fiction always means more to me in the form of a sustained narrative like a novel or a tv series than in a one-shot 'you and these characters spend 2 hours together' movie.

I mean, it's not like I want to be right about that. I'm open to being put in my place and introduced to recent films that do anything exciting/interesting/different.

idk what you even mean. what movies do you like. are we talking about hollywood movies. lots of movies are really exciting, do interesting things, are different from movies of the past. what is it you're looking for, formal ingenuity or just quality or ???

jaymc otm and i certainly watch way more television these days than i do movies

youtube clips

nothing like the artistry in a video of a dude puking after falling off a rail-slide while his friends yell oh shit and damn son and then are like wait is he really hurt oh wow

gifs

yeah i tend to find the hollywood movie machine a little boring these days, so i would vote TV. there's probably a specific reason for this, tied in w/how TV is by design a medium that requires more patience w/storytelling and seems to allow for more experimentation and bizarre one-offs, plus it seems to be a medium where the best writers are drawn to. not sure when this change really occurred but you have to figure that 25 years ago something like 'justified' would be closer to 'hunter' than anything else. there's probably an element of 'sopranos' and 'oz', etc, breaking open cable and writers realizing that they would be given an opportunity to flex their creative muscles a little more with this new frontier, coupled with movies kinda aiming for more "opening weekend" flash. idk.

really i'm voting 'tv' because good fiction always means more to me in the form of a sustained narrative like a novel or a tv series than in a one-shot 'you and these characters spend 2 hours together' movie.

^ This, completely. Movies often feel too much like short stories to me. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with short stories. I just don't tend to get as involved with them unless they're doing something stellar within the boundaries of their brevity.

or TV gives writers some control and Hollywoodish movies don't

also two hour visual narratives as the standard film length is too fucking long w/out even getting into 20 hour che soderbergh marathons. a tv season is obv aggregate much longer but u watch in twenty minute or 45 minute bites which is the perfect length to sit down at one time and watch something

+ like watching something from my couch >>>>> sticky gross STADIUM theater w/ fucked up air conditioning in shitty seats

Also two hour visual narratives as the standard film length is too fucking long. or it has become too long because movies are atm relentlessly ggg plot-driven without any of the breathing room or atmosphere that once made two hours require, like, a sine wave of attention rather than a constant escalation until a tumbledown mawkishness in place of any sort of controlled dénouement. There are exceptions that prove the rule – maybe deliberately - but in my experience they mistake indulgent languorous and Scenes That Are Art™ for anything actual structure that would once have justified length.

voted movies, because I didn't assume n/a was talking about current tv and current movies in the OP

I'm looking at the highest rated movies of 2011 on Metacritic just so I don't feel like I'm talking completely out of my ass here. And, granted, there are a lot of things I haven't heard of or heard much about. But among stuff I'm familiar with, Moneyball, Harry Potter and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are all in the top ten. It's pretty weak tea in terms of anything that people are going to hold up as a paragon of filmmaking even ten years down the road.

+ like watching something from my couch >>>>> sticky gross STADIUM theater w/ fucked up air conditioning in shitty seats

Nah, I still love the big-screen theatre experience.

i cannot remember the last movie i saw in theaters that i didn't check my watch (lol jk i don't wear a watch, my cell phone) during

we need an entire year to settle this poll?

is that any different to the level of immersion you have at home, or is it just that when you do that at home you can get up & go wander around? cinemas offer the kind of immersion that a bunch of things need & aren't the same without, i think
xp

home is better both ways. when i really need to immerse i can make it as comfortable as i want, get some food that isn't made of concession stand fingers and stretch out on my couch and chill out with some CENSOREDILLEGALSUBSTANCES and just enjoy. also, if i need to, i can stand up and walk around and do other stuff esp if the flick doesn't really need all of my attention. did i miss the point of Bridesmaids bc i wasn't in the room for every joek? one advantage movies definitely have is that they get me out of the apt and they're an easy date night option when we've gotten my sister to watch the babby and need something to do that only takes a few hours. but even then i'd rather get dinner or go to a different event. besides rarely is there a film showing that i really want to see.

I don't watch a lot of new movies but I think the 'tv renaissance' is totally overblown. there are a handful of shows w/ movie-esque budgets. almost all tv is bad. really bad. worse than watching a bad movie.

I don't think tv has the same place in our culture that it did back in the day and I don't feel like I'm missing out on much now that I don't watch it*. but there's nothing that's ever gonna be as universal or essential as the simpsons and I think producing and financing 'good tv' will becoming more and more difficult as fewer people watch.

*except breaking bad

er minus one 'but'

voted movies without hesitation because this:

I don't watch a lot of new movies but I think the 'tv renaissance' is totally overblown. there are a handful of shows w/ movie-esque budgets. almost all tv is bad. really bad. worse than watching a bad movie.

is absolutel otfm. I spend most of my viewing time watching movies, usually older stuff. TV is really painful.

i haven't seen a movie this year that was as funny, or true, as the second season of Louis. if you guys have seen one, tell me about it bc i would like to watch it.

Maybe if I had a different (bigger?) entertainment set-up, but there's no way I'm as immersed at home as I am in a darkened movie theater.

I'll admit that one advantage to watching at home is that I can pause to use the bathroom instead of sitting in discomfort for an hour because I'm afraid I'll miss something, as I did last weekend when I saw Shame. But the best movie experiences for me are ones where there aren't any interruptions at all.

like I am 99.9% certain that the totally insane but not particularly well-made slasher flick "Silent Night, Deadly Night" that I watched last night was better than anything that was on any available TV channel.

Now let's not go overboard here.

wire, sopranos, breaking bad, mad men, louie, west wing (first 3 seasons or so), party down, eastbound and down (1st season), 30 Rock (first 2 seasons) parks & friggin rec >>> than 98.9% of all movies i've seen in the last several years. it's possible i've missed some really good ones due to laziness but

I like movies but I watch more TV now, and I have been enjoying TV more than movies (for lots of the reasons already stated in this thread). Part of the change is access - with Netflix streaming and iTunes and Amazon and Hulu and all that, I have access to a lot of TV shows that I either couldn't get to before, or didn't want to mess with because of commercials/having to be home at the right time.

Maybe it's better to differentiate between TV as "what is playing per the channel channel at any given time" and TV as "serialized episodic visual entertainment." Because I'm thinking of it as the latter, and even including stuff like web-based series and stuff like Louis CK's $5 download comedy special.

Because TV as defined by what is air right now at any given moment is largely crap, but by the second definition, it's pretty fantastic.

Also, strangely, I have noticed a recent shift in my tastes wherein I prefer movies to be pleasant escapist entertainment, while I like TV shows that are challenging and complex and sometimes difficult to watch. It used to be the exact opposite - movies were for engaging my brain, while TV was for shutting it down.

almost all tv is bad. really bad. worse than watching a bad movie.

I agree with this 100%, and I still vote for TV over movies. Because the small percentage of really good TV is really good. The better stuff is sort of becoming more of a niche product, but I think we're on the cusp of the television industry being hit with new and different viewer expectations in much the same way the recording industry was hit several years back, so I think you're going to see an increasing number of experimental models that cater more to those niche viewers (a la Netflix's distribution of new Arrested Development episodes). I think judging TV on the basis of the material that thousands of channels scrape together in order to have something to broadcast 24/7/365 is as wrongheaded as judging music on the basis of the fact that you can hear "Moves Like Jagger" three times an hour on the radio. There are ways other than mindlessly gawping at some stupid channel for hours to engage with the medium, and I doubt that's how most people who enjoy television enjoy television.

And jenny more or less beat me to it while I was writing.

Whoever you are, you have excellent and well-reasoned opinions.

Lol at the main anti-TV people being like "I haven't watched TV in years." way to invalidate your opinion.

sorry let me go buy a new tv just to make sure I still don't like tv

yeah it's pretty much impossible to watch tv today w/out having an actual set there are no other routes/models of watching television things over the last ten years

Lol at the main anti-TV people being like "I haven't watched TV in years." way to invalidate your opinion.

I turn on the TV pretty much every night after dinner and 9 times out of 10 there is nothing decent on that I haven't seen before. There are no new episodes of the Sopranos, or Mad Men, or 30 Rock. I have seen all the Simpsons and South Park episodes I ever want to see. Always Sunny's seasons are like 10 episodes long or something...? I am always better off getting a movie from the local shop.

TV, by a lot. Even in novels I love, I don't attach emotionally to characters, but in really good TV I do. The episode of Louie this season when he professes his love to Pamela Adler was more powerful to me than any (new) movie I've seen in years. And Luck, last night, looked better than any recent movie I can think of.

I'll totally cop to this being an attention-span and setting thing, too - watching DVDs at home, I'm too connected with the outside world. I'll start looking up the actors or directors or something that catches my interest. Can't do that in a theater so I'd much rather see movies in one - but what makes it to theaters (even the Angelikas/Landmarks near me) usually isn't worth paying $20 plus gas to see.

and I dunno, I guess I don't see much TV because if I'm looking to get into a new show there's almost always something highly touted that I haven't seen. I bought the first season of Breaking Bad recently and I haven't seen 90% of the Community run that's on Hulu now.

dumbest fucking fucking poll ever

I do not watch/enjoy the thing you are comparing with the thing I do watch/enjoy = 'dumbest fucking fucking poll ever'

because the answer is obvious or because there can't be made a valid comparison or because you can't choose or because you require the correct capitalisation of abbreviations or why, exactly?

tv's been better than movies for years, imo

Yeah, and I've seen everything I want to see from them. Unless I take up a marathon viewing of Armenian miniseries concerning the effects of genocide and the problem with Turks, that is. ILL is a great option in theory, but the wait time for anything that isn't Anne of Avonlea is +/- 6 months. I still do it sometimes, but by the time I get the movie I've ILLed, I've often moved on to something else or forgotten why I put it on the first place. I live in a suburb that's suburby enough (sorry, iatee) that I don't have access to the large city collection that I did even 5 miles on the other side of town. I do netflix, greencine, hulu, and DVDs by mail from Sprockets when I need, and I see a ton of movies through them but there is honestly _no_ local option for watching them.

ha ha ha you know nothing about public libraries in 99% of this country do you?

hahaha I was raised by a librarian, have two close friends that are public librarians in the SF library system, and go to our branch on a weekly basis. and get ILL all the time (primarily for sci-fi books and not for movies tho)

in conclusion, fuck you

Every interlibrary loan request I've ever made has been like pulling impacted wisdom teeth. "WHY in god's NAME would you ask me to do something like THAT, you think you're too good for these Touched by an Angel videotapes? ok, FINE. FINE!"

― William (C), Tuesday, December 13, 2011 6:46 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Permalink

that's a function of a person at your library being a total dick, not ILL itself as an idea.

Yeah, I loved the SF library system. And the LA library system. And the Seattle library system. And the Boston library system. Unfortunately I'm not near any of them.

remy is there stuff you can't find on those internet services? (I've never used any of them)

xp

"DO I KNOW ABOUT LIBRARIES!? YOU GO TO HELL, SIR" may be my favorite haughty comeback in ilx history

ILL is a great option in theory, but the wait time for anything that isn't Anne of Avonlea is +/- 6 months. I still do it sometimes, but by the time I get the movie I've ILLed, I've often moved on to something else or forgotten why I put it on the first place.

6 months? Really?

that's a function of a person at your library being a total dick, not ILL itself as an idea.

I agree completely, but a barrier is a barrier.

some of my BEST FRIENDS are librarians

your results may be somewhat affected by the fact that you live in San Francisco btw, i can't believe that you're arguing that someone who lives in topeka or basically anywhere that isn't an urban/upper-middle class suburban area is going to be able to get a steady stream of iranian art movies or whatever through inter-library loan

ps i am a librarian

there's no real difference between walking to a store to get those 1s and 0s or pressing 3 buttons on your computer

Well, the diff is the vidstores will have stuff you are not going to find on your computer. We lose titles every time there's a technology change, as Dave Kehr has pointed out.

even if they magically did have access to this type of movie through ILL, they won't for much longer thanks to national library budget cuts

ILL would be a great setting for a hilarious TV comedy (not really)

6 months? Really?

Really. I waited for almost a year to rewatch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and then got kicked off the list b/c I didn't pick it up w/in 4 days of it arriving at my branch.

Shakey,

I'm pretty pleased with what I can find through the various internet-based sevices. It's not 100% - more like 70% - and it takes a _lot_ of time to track down some titles. Generally I'm 6 or 8 months behind the curve on new releases unless I get screener copies, and that's a good 3-6 months behind where I was when I had local video stores or libraries pipelining me new stuff. It's not a bad setup, but it leaves a lot to be desired, and I've been moving from movies toward TV just for ease of procurement.

btw I would never disagree that major-studio US films are worse than ever, and will be worse 5 years from now. He seems to agree:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/8919102/Where-are-the-great-movies-asks-Spielberg.html

some of my BEST FRIENDS are librarians

your results may be somewhat affected by the fact that you live in San Francisco btw, i can't believe that you're arguing that someone who lives in topeka or basically anywhere that isn't an urban/upper-middle class suburban area is going to be able to get a steady stream of iranian art movies or whatever through inter-library loan

I work for an academic library that sends out DVD's, VHS tapes to small town middle of nowhere libraries on a daily basis. Our holdings include all kinds of stuff, including IRANIAN ART MOVIES. Neat, huh?

slightly off-topic, another weird thing about TV is that it requires this bigger emotional/time-commitment to pay off, imho. For example, I've watched episodes of Community and Parks & Rec and Arrested Development, not laughed once, and happily ignored them ever since. But you get this phenomenon of people telling you you have to watch several episodes before you will enjoy it - it's like you have to perform this mental trick to get anything out of it, you have to first invest time and energy into it and then the cognitive dissonance kicks in and you figure you better watch it/enjoy it now cuz you've already watched 1 1/2 hours of it etc. Like you have to develop this familiarity/immersion in the show before you get anything out of it. I find something about this phenomenon off-putting.

And I don't get this from movies.

xps

that is neat

xpost

Attacking the prevalence of film franchises - movies based on toys, or video games, that are intended to sell a product as much as they are to entertain - Spielberg said: “I think producers are more interested in backing concepts than directors and writers.

Kinda disingenuous of him not to note his own role in this process, witting or unwitting.

btw I would never disagree that major-studio US films are worse than ever, and will be worse 5 years from now.

yeah this seems kind of indisputable.

thanks internet!

slightly off-topic, another weird thing about TV is that it requires this bigger emotional/time-commitment to pay off, imho. For example, I've watched episodes of Community and Parks & Rec and Arrested Development, not laughed once, and happily ignored them ever since. But you get this phenomenon of people telling you you have to watch several episodes before you will enjoy it - it's like you have to perform this mental trick to get anything out of it, you have to first invest time and energy into it and then the cognitive dissonance kicks in and you figure you better watch it/enjoy it now cuz you've already watched 1 1/2 hours of it etc. Like you have to develop this familiarity/immersion in the show before you get anything out of it. I find something about this phenomenon off-putting.

And I don't get this from movies.

so you don't have to invest 1.5 hours in a movie to get something out of it?

Really. I waited for almost a year to rewatch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and then got kicked off the list b/c I didn't pick it up w/in 4 days of it arriving at my branch.

This is kind of your fault, though. If libraries didn't do this sort of thing, it would take even longer for you to get your stuff.

i'm really not trying to be a dick there, i honestly don't understand the difference you're trying to point out

ILL would be a great setting for a hilarious TV comedy (not really)

Yes!

ps i am a librarian

― n/a, Tuesday, December 13, 2011 11:53 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

showing you're a pretty terrible one itt

good thing i have ilx posting to fall back on

so you don't have to invest 1.5 hours in a movie to get something out of it?

the specific amount of time is not the issue. It's more the phenomenon of say, having to watch several episodes of something before it becomes funny. Which has always struck me as odd. Good comedy should be funny right off the bat. Movies work in a different way.

xp

Good comedy should be funny right off the bat.

yeah all comedy shd be relentless pies in the face

and usually it's not a question of continuity - ie, a joke being set up early on that pays off four episodes later (altho this does happen with the better serialized shows like Sopranos, Mad Men, the Wire, etc.). It's more a question of developing a familiarity with a show's rhythms and tropes and then once you've internalized those you come to see the comedy in them... A lot of times I don't want to go through that process. Like with Parks and Rec I just didn't think the jokes were funny, I didn't want to have to sit through 4 episodes of bad jokes before I laughed at one, that seems like a waste of time.

xp

not saying that people don't sometimes excuse weak material with "you just have to get into it" but it's crazy to exclude all comedy that involves meticulous build-up of observation or establishment of expectations

yeah all comedy shd be relentless pies in the face
football in the groin

tbf football in the groin works on so many levels

ILL would be a great setting for a hilarious TV comedy (not really)

Ha, the other night at drinks, a few of us were actually discussing the idea of a library as a setting for a workplace sitcom.

http://aklemai.com/albums/album34/FootballGroin.gif

not saying that people don't sometimes excuse weak material with "you just have to get into it" but it's crazy to exclude all comedy that involves meticulous build-up of observation or establishment of expectations

obviously I'm referring primarily to the former scenario.

didn't they try a "party girl" sitcom?

I don't think the first few episodes of Parks and Rec were particularly funny. If I were recommending the show to someone I knew would be impatient, I would tell them to start with Season 2, and I don't think they would miss out on much. But ultimately I didn't mind watching them because they created context and familiarity. And one of the things that TV has on movies is that allows you to develop relationships with characters over time. I watch P&R not just for the laffs but also b/c I care about those people.

it's not just lesser shows people are pretending to like that take some time to really get invested in, it's pretty much EVERY SHOW, especially if you're watching it from the beginning and it's one of the 99% of good shows that had a shaky start

and then sometimes you invest yrself in a show that turns to shit... like, say BSG or (I have been led to understand) Lost.

xp That's true: most shows take at least a few episodes to find their rhythm, figure out what they do best.

my choice of films over tv wasn't a judgment of quality, it was more about which one fits my lifestyle better - actually i agree that the best tv is great because it allows you into this self-contained and detailed world that references back to itself, past events, different characters etc all the time. i just don't have the time for that sort of entertainment! and following tv in a more dilettantish kind of way feels way less satisfying.

films are both more disposable, weirdly (in that all you have to commit is a couple of hours then it's over) but also more intense an experience.

(I have been led to understand) Lost.

yeah, I wouldn't mind having those 130-something hours of my life back, tbh

something else i like about tv is that it doesn't have to tell you the whole story in two hours, so it's just more relaxed about everything.

in screenwriting there's this golden rule that every line of dialogue has to say something about both the plot and the character saying it, which is like seriously rigorous, and i feel like usually this mentality stretches out to every other aspect of the movie as well: you've got like an hour 45 and that's IT so every microparticle of the soundtrack and set and everything has to be honed to extract the maximum impact of whatever it is the director's trying to do. (this is one reason i think there are so many heist movies and thrillers, which you don't get so much of on tv - the characters' lives turn on the same kind of nanosecond mechanics that directors have trained themselves to excel at in the crafting of their movies). not all movies have this kind of saturation of meaning but most seem to. and sometimes it's great when the whole thing really clicks like a well-oiled machine. but i like to watch things unfold languidly too, or seemingly at random, or with small stakes - no big weddings or nuclear bombs - and tv seems suited to that because of its serial nature and its length.

i mean even in something as slow and natural as "i've loved you so long", there's really not a single wasted shot.

i guess another contributing factor here is what morbs hates - tv has to share space with the rest of your house, and it doesn't envelop your senses the same way, so it doesn't make as much sense to invest every frame with freighted meaning cause half the audience just put a forkful of ramen in their mouths

and then sometimes you invest yrself in a show that turns to shit... like, say BSG or (I have been led to understand) Lost.

Lost was like a really fun and engaging videogame that ends not with some awesome boss but rather with a screenshot of the designers thanking you for playing. And also they're flipping you off and one of them has your toothbrush up his ass.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.